Chương 139: Chapter 137: Lord of Bones

Ix'Chel might have only had ten percent health left, but dungeons had a universal rule that Cyrus was well aware of: the only health point that mattered was the last one. The last rush was always where the developers hid their nastiest ideas, where clean fights turned messy, and where tired players started rushing simply because they thought they were close to victory. Cyrus would not make that mistake.

"Hold damage," he said. Scale groaned from somewhere behind the boss's massive spine.

"I hate when you say that." As far as Cyrus was concerned, most Rogues would have shared the sentiment. He didn't know why, but the class had something in it that made everyone playing as one twice as impatient as they should have been. He'd seen it enough in Second Wind: Scale, Mano Roja, Rebecca, even their all-star Rogue, Kaelith, were not exempt from this rule. Maybe it's because they're so fast, he thought. The world slowing down around them simply gives them the ick.

Ix'Chel, Lord of Bones, towered over the center of the chamber, its skeletal human torso rising from the coils of a massive serpent body. Its ornate Aztec headpiece, made of jade and gold, rattled with every movement, and green fire burned in the empty holes of its skull. The scepter in its right hand, half mace and half royal staff, struck the floor beside Corral's shield, sending a massive shockwave in all directions. The Guardian held his ground. Second Wind was especially proud of its solid tank lineup.

El Rafael acted as the primary frontliner of the guild, but Corral was not much behind in skill and equipment, and even with both of them currently dungeon delving, Athos had no lack of capable Guardians and Paladins to tackle the Field Boss hunts all over Tidemark.

Corral's boots were planted at the edge of the central platform, his tower shield braced in both hands — he was using a rare skill called 'Absolute Shield', that required sheathing his weapon — his health bar bouncing between yellow and safe as Talion kept feeding healing into him. Alysanna stood on the left steps, bow drawn, arrow pointed at the boss's shoulder joint. Adaptive waited on the opposite side, sword low, body angled for the next opening.

Scale had used Stealth, meaning he either understood the assignment, or he was going to try something reckless. Again. Ix'Chel's health ticked down to below ten percent, and the boss stopped.

"Now," Cyrus said.

"Transformation." The serpent body split open in sections, ribs unfolding from the spine one after another with dry cracks that echoed in the cavern. The smooth skeletal coils broke apart into dozens of hooked legs made of bone, and what had been a serpent moments ago became a gigantic skeletal centipede dragging a human torso above it, every leg clawing at the floor with uncanny speed. At the same time, the scepter in Ix'Chel's hand grew.

The skull-shaped mace head split, the shaft lengthened, and a curved blade of pale blonde grew from its side until the weapon became a full scythe. Talion swore under his breath, and Cyrus couldn't blame him: Ix'Chel was easily the most terrifying content they had cleared so far, and Reaper's Crawl Ix'Chel was a different beast altogether.

"Do not get hit," the mage called.

"It inflicts Mortal Fracture. 90% reduced healing, 50% reduced movement speed for 30 seconds. If it scratches you, you're dead." They had beaten him before, although with several wipes under their belt, and right now, wiping was not an option.

"Corral."

"I'm ready." The boss moved. Whereas it slithered like a serpent before, now it was crawling, which not only made it much faster, it was way more unnerving as well. The dozens of bone legs dug into the stone and launched the boss forward in short bursts, changing direction without warning, and the first scythe sweep came for Corral's neck.

"Grand Bulwark: Absolute Shield!" His shield expanded with golden light, the barrier widening just enough to catch the blade in all its length. The impact threw sparks across the chamber and drove him back three steps, but the scythe did not touch his body. Skill upgrades were scarcely known for now, and were incredibly hard to achieve them. Out of the hundreds of Second Wind players, only five of them had managed to get one. The principle wasn't difficult.

You had a skill, and by using it in a different way — like using Grand Bulwark in Absolute Shield stance, with two hands — you already had the prerequisites met. However, you needed to find a trainer that could help you hone it into an actual ability, enough gold to pay for it, and enough skill to pull it off. The better you were, the more advanced techniques could be upgraded, but it was just as much theory as practice. Cyrus loved that about Godsrealm.

Being able to improve by learning was something Knighthood never had.

"Left!" he called. Ix'Chel crawled along the wall for three meters, then dropped back down toward Alysanna. She was already moving, but not fast enough. Corral was.

"Shield Rush!" He crossed the gap and slammed into the boss's lower ribs, not hard enough to stop the creature completely, but enough to change the angle of the scythe. The blade cut through the air where Alysanna had been standing a heartbeat earlier and carved a clean line through the stone steps. Alysanna fired point blank into the boss's face. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Thanks."

"Hm," Corral nodded. After that mishap, everyone found their rhythm, and despite the difficulty of the content, they were steadily on top of the situation. Cyrus was proud of his team. Scale has always been talented, and he was growing steadily, but the growth of the others was nothing short of impressive.

Alysanna was slowly becoming a top-notch archer, although he couldn't take all the credit for that: the girl was reverently watching all content that had surfaced about Orion these last few weeks, analysing, learning, sometimes even borderline copying what she saw, and that had skyrocketed her efficiency.

Talion seemed less and less grumpy by the day, the magic of Godsrealm slowly engulfing him completely, and that had quite an impact on his ability to work with the team, and Adapting was still the reliable — albeit quiet — cornerstone of the party. Corral was not part of their group technically, but they'd run enough dungeons together to become a well-oiled machine. The boss only had 2% health left, and Cyrus wanted to avoid any potential mistakes, so he decided to end it right then and there.

"Flame Hydra: Inferno!" The stronger the base skill, the harder to upgrade it. That was the general rule. And Flame Hydra was still the strongest skill he had seen. It might have had less utility than some others, but the raw damage output was unquestionable. It even out DPS'd Athos's Three-Blade Execution and Kaelith's upgraded ultimate. Three heads of fire rose behind him, brighter than before, and their jaws opened in unison.

The boss had immediately noticed the switch in threat, and aggro'd on the mage, but it was already too late. However, instead of the flaming heads crashing into the target, they opened their jaws in unison and bathed the monster in crimson flames, filling the chamber with light and unbearable heat. The rest of the party already knew what was coming and had acted accordingly, pulling toward the edge of the cave, trying not to be in the way.

When the stream of infernal flames ceased, the heads rose even higher and crashed into the Lord of Bones, sealing its fate. The boss's health emptied, and Ix'Chel froze, scythe swinging blindly. Then the bone legs collapsed one by one. The human torso cracked down the center, green fire leaking out through the ribs, and the entire creature fell apart in a rain of white fragments and dying embers, mixed with the residue of Cyrus's spell.

Boss defeated: Ix'Chel, Lord of Bones The far wall opened with the same low grind they had heard after the previous clear, revealing a narrow passage washed in golden light. He checked the time as the others gathered themselves.

"Scale, gather the loot," he said.

"Then move. We'll rest on the other side."

"Bossy," Scale rolled his eyes. Cyrus glanced at him.

"I'll shut up now," the Rogue amended. Four Rare pieces of equipment had dropped from Ix'Chel, and they were all going to the vault of Second Wind. No Epics this time, Cyrus thought. His current staff was called the Staff of the Serpent Sanctum, and it dropped from Ix'Chel the last time they'd beaten him. As a level 25 Epic weapon, it was by far the most valuable item they got from the cave; however, he had a sneaking suspicion it might have been because of the first clear.

They passed through the passage and emerged into a circular stone chamber. Verdugo's team was already there. The Berserker was sitting on the floor with his battleaxe across his lap, looking far too pleased with himself for someone whose armor was stained black from shoulder to waist. Rafael leaned against the wall beside him, shield resting at his feet. Carmen sat on a step with her staff in both hands, next to Leona, while Diego and Mano Roja were talking quietly near one of the sealed archways. Verdugo grinned.

"Took you long enough. We've been here for thirty minutes!" Leona glanced at the berserker.

"More like, three."

"Potato, potato," the berserker waved at her, saying both words with the exact same pronunciation.

"I don't think," Leona replied, "you know how that phrase works." Cyrus checked the chamber markings. One on the western wall was already lit. The middle marking flared to life behind him as his party crossed the threshold. He then turned and looked at the last one, the carving of a sun. Rafael followed his gaze.

"Orion is still inside."

"His cave was unexplored," Carmen said.

"Ours was hard enough even after practicing. He has to solve it from scratch."

"With a strong team," Rafael added, and Cyrus inclined to agree. Orion's team might have had the hardest task, clearing the supposedly hardest cave first try, but he had Alice with him, and the others were no slouches, either.

"Unknown content takes time," Adaptive chimed in, which was weird enough. Still, he was right. Scale sat on a broken stone block and stretched his legs.

"So what happens if he fails?" Nobody answered immediately, so the question lingered in the half-lit chamber for a while. If one party failed their boss fight, or didn't even make it there in the first place, the cave would boot them out, and they would have to try again, and the time to clear was over two hours even if they kept improving. If they wanted to finish what waited them down below, they couldn't afford setbacks like that. Verdugo leaned back on his hands.

"He will make it." Most of the others nodded, but Leona raised an eyebrow.

"You guys sound certain," Leona said.

"You should check the forums every once in a while," Scale grinned.

"We fought him," Rafael continued.

"We watched him fight, solve problems, even stop a whole-ass civil war, sort of."

"There's a reason every single guild around wants him," Alysanna pointed out.

"Well, besides Crimson Court, but that's a whole other can of worms." Cyrus nodded.

"If someone can pull it off, it's him." He wanted Orion and his team to do a trial run, but even without one, he would not bet against the Black Ranger.

"Speaking of pulling things off," Rafael said, looking at Cyrus, "how is the dungeon program going?" Cyrus sat down across from him, grateful for a conversation that did not involve staring at an unlit wall.

"Better than expected, but Blue wants the lower-level teams to start pushing for more content soon."

"That sounds like Blue," Verdugo said. The mage sighed. Second Wind quickly became a family, but that didn't mean there weren't any expectations.

"She wants everything organized yesterday. Athos wants strong teams in the field. Kara wants people trained properly before they get thrown into field bosses. I am trying to make sure our dungeon groups don't embarrass us. Everyone's improving fast, but without a Guild Seal, there's a limit to what we can do." A week ago, most Second Wind members were just talented local players with good instincts and uneven habits.

The Oakenlight tournament had revealed how much raw talent Tidemark had, but raw talent was not enough for higher-level content. Dungeons punished bad positioning, wasted cooldowns, sloppy communication, and players who thought personal damage meters mattered more than mechanics. So Cyrus had started building standards. Groups based on role priorities, basic callouts, loot agreements. He'd taught anyone who needed teaching how to reset after a wipe without turning the party chat into a blame festival.

He'd shown which local dungeons were worth farming, which were traps for under-geared groups, and which mechanics could be skipped only if the party was strong enough to survive the mistake.

"If we want to compete," he'd told Athos, "having ten all-stars carrying the guild is not enough. King's Glade has that, Avalon has that, Golden Order has that, on top of higher numbers. What we need is even our weakest five teams knowing what to do, and when to do it." He turned to Rafael once again.

"We have solid players at the top, the Carpa crafters and various other groups are supporting us with equipment, and soon enough every single member of Second Wind will be someone I'd be happy to have at my six. We'll be turning Tidemark's local player base into reliable teams before the bigger guilds finish organizing and recruiting theirs."

"We have local knowledge, too," Leona said.

"And trust," Rafael added.

"People fight better when they know the person beside them won't run at the first bad pull."

"Or steal the loot," Mano Roja said.

"Or stand in the obvious death circle," Talion added, glancing at Scale. We're truly building something remarkable, Cyrus thought as he looked at each and every one of his guildmates.